The second selection on Spotify is the one that makes everyone associate horror with organ music: Toccato and Fugue in D minor . I had not known the name of this piece, nor was I even clear it was Bach, although of course that was always a good guess.
Then I wondered why it goes with horror so much, and figured it must be the Phantom of the Opera, and this brought images to mind of the revolutions of the late 18th and 19th century in France.
And I looked at both sides in my mind, and I could find value in both views. The Royalists–the true reactionaries and thus “rightists”–no doubt felt that their social order, whatever its flaws, was vastly better than chaos and mass death, the possibility of which was quite obvious after Robepierre’s Terror, but of course which was latent in the air long before. Such people would be either Christians, or people who used Christianity to pursue personal power goals which were rational at least within their own world views, meaning that they pursued intelligently some concrete goal.
The people opposing them were also rational, in that the system was plainly rigged, geared for the pleasure and well being of an elite at the expense of a mass of people who were poor, insecure, and held in contempt for their very place of birth, and birth parents. Since there were no elections (for varying lengths of time throughout this era), violent uprising seemed the only possible solution.
On both sides of the barricades one could find reasonable people who were able to explain what they wanted and why. I’ve never really put it this way to myself, but it makes sense. The conflict was rational, even if we now would have a much harder time sympathizing with aristocrats than aspiring republicans.
But I look at today, and wonder “what are these fools rebelling against?” The revolutions of the past two centuries have bought, in America at least, all the advantages and possibilities that any reasonable person could demand. And all the efforts to overturn and break it–the actions called for by Bernie and his fellow pinkos (we can and should bring that word back)–will only damage beyond repair something which is WORKING.
Venezuela WAS working. Argentina WAS working. Europe, for now, is working, but it is not trending in the direction of continuing that way much longer.
Our age is one of lunacy. People fail to value what is important, and pursue relentlessly idiotic dreams consisting in pipe smoke.